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Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

bbc.com

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Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#121

Post by BiteCode_dev »

nprateem wrote: post #117
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, ah :D I don't even know if enlightening exist, to be honest. For me, it doesn't matter. I don't need the promise of something potentially amazing in the future, I'm just interested in something that makes my life better right now. In the center, I only met regular people with ordinary problems, even teachers. Getting a hang on suffering, one step at a time. Sometimes being completly off the mark, because humans a…

I've spent a few years meditating most mornings and evenings and I'd hoped for more. No fireworks no bliss... feels like I'm not making much progress. But I've read about enough people experiencing much more I wonder where I'm going wrong

All the teachers I practiced with repeated to me: don't look for something special. Don't look for bliss. If bliss comes, don't pay attention to it. Bliss is not the aim of this meditation.

I don't know what meditation you are practicing, and there are so many of them I wouldn't be able to give any advice that would work with your own practice.

So I can't know if you are doing something wrong.

What I know, however, is that in the Vipassana meditation following Sayagyi U Ba Khin tradition, one would advice to focus on practice. There is no expectation. Nothing to achieve.

In this tradition, your role is to provide efforts, but one is not responsible for the result. Things are just rising and passing away. Suffering. Bliss. Anything else. Just appearing and disapearing.

Meditation is just the tool to help us live through that.

Peace is not bliss. Peace means you don't need bliss, nor are you hindered by suffering. Easier said than done, and that's why it's a long path.

It's a lifetime practice. You start again every day. One day, you realize you feel a bit more peaceful and happy than you used to. You smile. And you sit once again.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#122

Post by rpmisms »

ramraj07 wrote: post #51

Whenever someone talks about mindfulness or stoicism, the name that pops to my head is Tim Ferris. Like a less crappier Joe Rogan with an actual brain maybe? I still listen to some of his podcast episodes because he gets guests who I want to learn about. But oh my god the narcissism! I get it the podcast is about success and how to succeed, but for the love of god try to take your head out of your own ass for a minut…

I understand exactly what you're talking about. I genuinely can't listen to ideological podcasters who are shitty people. I don't mean ideologies I disagree with, I mean people with no compassion who try to tell you how to live.

Good example: Tim Pool. He's ideologically pretty close to me, but I can't stand him as a person. No thanks.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#123

Post by 2-718-281-828 »

danuker wrote: post #112
jackdawed wrote: post #82

This is a forefront issue that Buddhism tries to address, both modern pragmatic Buddhism and fundamentalist Buddhism. It's why right speech, right action, and morals is one of the first things they drill into you. Most pragmatic practitioners will refuse to teach you if you indicate that you have some mental problems or moral deficiencies that should be addressed by a professional first, as mindfulness may end up doi…

> I've experienced all these interpersonal deficits after meditating seriously 2 hours every day for 2 years straight. Wow! I haven't meditated before. That sounds like a lot of time. Do you still meditate? What does it offer you? Has it offered you what you expected?

I'm also curious about an answer. If I may take a guess from my own experience. People from Western countries tend to start meditation practice with a specific goal in mind as opposed to just doing it naturally as it is part of the culture. For me a goal is gaining mental strength and balance. After meditating for a while I reach that goal (at least to some extent) and get overwhelmed by the energetic surplus. That leads to either distraction or simply investing this positivity into another goal (work, a project, social activities, ...) leaving me less motivated to further meditate (because it is less "fun" to sit still and work on your mind instead of doing something). After a while the energetic surplus is consumed and I am sooner or later mentally back to square one - because stopping the meditation also stopped the healing and reflection and I'm faced anew with old wounds destabilizing my mind.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#124

Post by colordrops »

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #116
jackdawed wrote: post #82

This is a forefront issue that Buddhism tries to address, both modern pragmatic Buddhism and fundamentalist Buddhism. It's why right speech, right action, and morals is one of the first things they drill into you. Most pragmatic practitioners will refuse to teach you if you indicate that you have some mental problems or moral deficiencies that should be addressed by a professional first, as mindfulness may end up doi…

what would you say are examples of harm done by dedicated meditation practiced by people with moral deficiencies?

The term is "spiritual bypass". You disconnect from emotions, pleasure and pain, etc, see the world as illusion, and no longer feel guilt for poor action.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#125

Post by danielvaughn »

denton-scratch wrote: post #83
ramraj07 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent a week in Denver and boulder and continuously got the eerie vibe that every person I met who moved there, is an example of the most self centered person I would have met in any other situation elsewhere. I suppose the type of young person who’d move to CO “for the outdoors” is gonna select for the trend. Everything, including the assholish cycling, was indicative of that. Noped out of that place for this reas…

Denver is Trungpa territory, right?

Moreso Boulder but yeah

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#126

Post by manmal »

rpmisms wrote: post #122
ramraj07 wrote: post #51

Whenever someone talks about mindfulness or stoicism, the name that pops to my head is Tim Ferris. Like a less crappier Joe Rogan with an actual brain maybe? I still listen to some of his podcast episodes because he gets guests who I want to learn about. But oh my god the narcissism! I get it the podcast is about success and how to succeed, but for the love of god try to take your head out of your own ass for a minut…

I understand exactly what you're talking about. I genuinely can't listen to ideological podcasters who are shitty people. I don't mean ideologies I disagree with, I mean people with no compassion who try to tell you how to live. Good example: Tim Pool. He's ideologically pretty close to me, but I can't stand him as a person. No thanks.

How is Tim Ferriss ideological or a shitty person? I think he’s trying real hard and doesn’t stomp on people. His success is also quite hard earned IMO.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#127

Post by davesque »

jackdawed wrote: post #82

This is a forefront issue that Buddhism tries to address, both modern pragmatic Buddhism and fundamentalist Buddhism. It's why right speech, right action, and morals is one of the first things they drill into you. Most pragmatic practitioners will refuse to teach you if you indicate that you have some mental problems or moral deficiencies that should be addressed by a professional first, as mindfulness may end up doi…

There's a balance to be struck with anything. On the one hand, teaching meditation outside of the context of religion might increase the likelihood of the purpose of the practice being misunderstood. On the other hand, any religious practice runs the risk of breeding a sense of self righteousness in the practitioner. With meditation and mindfulness, I've seen both.

Also, I gotta say that language like "moral deficiencies" sounds incredibly broad without some examples. I think that speaks to the drawbacks of a religious context. I don't necessarily mean to direct these comments at you in particular (after all, I don't know what you meant by "moral deficiencies" without more info), but morality is a slippery topic and religion often seems to treat it like it isn't.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#128

Post by 2-718-281-828 »

colordrops wrote: post #124
2-718-281-828 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what would you say are examples of harm done by dedicated meditation practiced by people with moral deficiencies?

The term is "spiritual bypass". You disconnect from emotions, pleasure and pain, etc, see the world as illusion, and no longer feel guilt for poor action.

I'm wondering though if that is really a necessary consequence of non-spiritual meditation practice. There is fine line between meditation and autogenic training style self-hypnosis internalizing convenient messages. So, if a practitioner starts to go down that route all bets are off. OTOH it is true that social norms become less relevant with meditation. For one because meditation makes you strong and social norms are backed up by guilt dynamics which don't work well on actually self-confident people. Also social norms are constructs and you start to look through those instead of thinking they are actually real. But I have some slight feeling that this might as well open up a path to real and authentic moral attitude and personal ethics. Those simply might not be so convenient and easily manipulated and by that seem somewhat frightening to some people.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#129

Post by zozbot234 »

jackdawed wrote: post #82

This is a forefront issue that Buddhism tries to address, both modern pragmatic Buddhism and fundamentalist Buddhism. It's why right speech, right action, and morals is one of the first things they drill into you. Most pragmatic practitioners will refuse to teach you if you indicate that you have some mental problems or moral deficiencies that should be addressed by a professional first, as mindfulness may end up doi…

It's interesting that Western Christianity has pretty much the same underlying message - you simply can't reach salvation and union with God without starting from right morals. (This might be why Stoicism with its meditative and contemplative traditions, and a similar focus on divinely-inspired "right/moral action" was a key ally of early Christianity.) Islam of course has its own Sufi traditions, the Biblical prophets are said to wander in the desert etc. etc.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#130

Post by np- »

photochemsyn wrote: post #63

This is so subject to interpretation that it's almost meaningless. For example, consider the case of someone who takes up meditation and comes to the realization that they really hate their job. If they then quit their job and seek another position at the same or lower pay, are they being 'selfish'? On the one hand, if they've bought into the notion that "we are all a family here" and that loyalty to their employer i…

100% agreed. Somehow this article manages to redefine mindfulness as just convincing yourself to feel no guilt for anything (“In general, mindfulness seems to calm uncomfortable feelings” is a direct quote from the article, and most subsequent conclusions are drawn from that statement). That’s not mindfulness, that’s just being a narcissist sociopath.
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